Funds are requested to help support expenses for invited speakers for the 53rd annual symposium of the Society for Developmental Biology (SDB), which will be held June 15-18, 1994 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. This year's symposium is organized by Charles B. Kimmel, current President of the SDB, and will be attended by researchers and teachers interested in the study of development, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows. We expect that, as during the past 6 years, the meeting will be of medium-size (300-400 registrants), and we encourage junior level attendance by providing them some financial support. The meeting will include a broad range of topics, following the extremely successful organization of talks and posters that was newly established for last year's SDB annual meeting. Plant, animal and microbial systems will all be represented in sessions organized around-developmental problems and "themes" rather than particular systems or organisms. We plan 60 scientific talks, beginning with an opening evening keynote address (developmental genetics of yeast). Highlighted during the next 3 days will be a series of 6 plenary sessions that include 19 exciting invited speakers. Additionally, there will be 8 "minisymposia" arranged in 2 sessions (4 minisymposia running in parallel during each session). The minisymposia will be organized and chaired by experts in the areas, whereas most of the talks will given by junior people, thus providing them with an opportunity to speak at the national level. Posters, also providing opportunity for young people to present their work, will be available for viewing during the entire meeting, and 5 scheduled poster sessions will provide ample time for discussion. Reflecting the growing role of the SDB in the affairs and concerns of its membership, this year's meeting will, for the first time, include 2 issue-oriented workshops, on education and on the concerns of women and minorities.